First few strokes in Lucerne 07

21 11 2007

Lola2 and I in action during the Heats in Lucerne. In the back Alen from GB. I think a became 2nd in this race. Alen here shows how nice he keeps his arms really straight at the catch. Something to work on for me there! Crooked arms at the catch and basically all the way through the stroke. I guess this gets better during the race as my arms must be getting tired…The start is never the most pretty rowing to look at.
Anyway, lying sick in my bed right now, it is a good memory to look back at!

piergiorgio-negrini-1jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-2jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-3jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-4jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-5jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-6jpg.jpg

piergiorgio-negrini-7jpg.jpg



Sparring at the club

14 11 2007

This weekend we got two boats on the water!

Yeah, Henke sort of recovered from a nasty cold and actually rested on Saturday so we could give the four a tough time on Sunday. I did some hard 10k pieces on Saturday and felt the strain a bit in the shoulders. Ergs are tough bastards to beat. Ruairi, Walle, Janne and Robban were up for a bit of sparring and after a 1,5 km warmup we got our stern next to eachother and started pushing. Pretty tense rowing, putting a lot of power to each stroke and trying to keep the rythm relaxed. Meanwhile continously getting feedback if your effort is paying of or not…are we moving away or are they? After 12km’s we both felt we had done enough…We rowed an other 4 k’s relaxed.. Perfect training…it is so much fun when suddenly a normal long distance row turn really nasty and some people get extremely competitive…I name no names (Janne/Henke)…
We also had Matt the cameraman in the launch with Louise racing alongside…Though a wizard with the film camera, he took some not so great pictures…

Hope we get this kind of training more often! Awesome…thanks guys!

sparring-1.jpg

sparring-2.jpg

sparring-autumn.jpg



Single again…

9 11 2007

Ok, this morning finally jumped the fence…I put my single (Lola1) in the water.
She is actually camping over at work at the moment and I felt that had to start rowing the narrow little boat again. It has been MONTHS! Lots of erging, rowing in the fat coastal boat, and off coarse rowing the Dubbel with Henrik has been the rowing I have been doing basically since the Nationals in September.

To be honest the first five minutes were actually scary. The sub 12° water isnt really the helping my private little come back here…
But after 5km’s the strokes were getting lenghtier and the good ol rythm was coming back. It is so nice! The waters at work are not to bad. Really enjoyed the 16kms and a big hour later I was standing in the office again with a big smile on my face. This will reall help us in the double I think.

Keep rowin!

- Paul



Routine

4 11 2007

Finally finding a bit of routine again. Last week’s training were a number (think 4) one hour sessions on the erg, a great paddle around town with Sten, some pushups/situps/chins at work, and a lot of screwing….

In our new appartment we now actually have a little room for the rowing ergometer. The problem is it was filled with all the parts that will become the kitchen. Boxes, planks, bags with small parts etc. But by stacking it all neatly I can just squeeze in with my heavy metall friend. Last weeks hour sessions have been going better than expected! In fact they are better than last year at the same time. I am now about where I was in february this year. That is good news. Even better news is that I am getting more and more space in the small room. The kitchen is growing. Everyday I spent about 2hours doing something there and it is giving result! Ruairi is helping during the weekends and WAUW does that help. Six cabinets, two wall cabinets, a fridge and freezer cabinet, dishwasher and all the drawers are more or less in place. Now we are waiting for the Work top that will arrive on wednsday! Good fun to do this yourself.

This weekends training had been tough. Yesterday we tried a 2hour erg session. After 24km and barely 80 mintutes done I bailed out. At 1:15 energy was gone. Oh well. Ruairi held in and finished his 120minutes of agony. Tough bastard. He was really nackerd though while we were screwing the kitchen later on :-)
Today I planned for a bike ride and decided on a newish round towards Vaxholm. Navigating through Djursholm and all of its 1 million small steep shity hills I finally made it out to the nice foresty areas. I went for 15km gravel/mud road to putt my new Cycklocross bike to the test…After 80 minutes again I suddenly felt really empty in my legs….damn…freezing cold and at least 80 minutes to go…Nearly crying my through Djursholm and all those damn hills I came home and nearly drowned in the bathtub with my cramping legs. Good stuff!! But I must be having something in my body making me not feel the usual superman…Thats life..
Louise is doing great stuff all around the house and even in the kitchen she worked on some finishing touches.
Needless to say, we are reall happy here in the green edge of Stockholm.



Some pics of the Coastal races

4 11 2007

Follow the link for more pics.
Read the rest of this entry »